​Coral atolls offshore NW Borneo (Central Luconia Province) Malaysia are unique in composition and architecture. More than 200 carbonate build-ups constitute the largest concentration of giant isolated platforms globally. They are largely of Late Miocene age and easily exceed the height of the PETRONAS Tower in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (thickness range: 300m to 1,500m) and rival the Dutch city Den Hague in diameter (width range: 1,000m to 30,000m). Mapped by excellent seismic and sampled by over 5 km cores, they constitute the most significant calibration points for Miocene isolated buildups globally. The Paris Climate Accord provided a new spin to research on these buildups: CO2. Depleted buildups are potential storage sites for CO2. Hence, the objective of a first regional evaluation of these buildups aims at predicting reservoir properties from seismic.

Prof. Dr. Michael C. Poppelreiter is the Director of the South East Asian Carbonate Research Lab (SEACaRL), and the Shell Chair in Petroleum Geology at the Department of Geosciences, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP). His area of expertise: Shell Subject Matter Expert for carbonate geology, Outcrop and Regional Geological Studies (focus Middle East), Conceptual Modelling, Reservoir Modelling and 3D Digital Modelling, Project management, CO2 in carbonate, Technical Assurance & Capability (TA-2), 25 publications and 2 books on borehole image logs and reservoir geology.